One of the present writers, who has been blind from birth, adds, "I have always had a notion of some difference between shade and shadow. Shade appears to me much darker, and more confused than shadow. Shade has no particular form, while shadow takes the shape of the object by which it is cast." We see no reason why Miss Brown should have had a less distinct idea of the difference between shade and shadow than of the difference in the two primary colors, yellow and orange. We are not willing to believe that she was totally ignorant of the import of the words shade and shadow. We give, however, a brief extract from her "Lessons of the Louvre," and leave the reader to judge for himself:

"So spake the sun of Gallic fame,
When, on his conquering noon,

No dimly distant shadow came

Of clouds to burst too soon-
But o'er the crown'd and laurel'd brow
There passed a shade the while,
That dimm'd the dark eye's haughty glow,
And quench'd the scornful smile."

THE LAND OF LIBERTY.

Where may that glorious land be found
Which countless bards have sung-

The chosen of the nations, crown'd

With fame, forever young?

A fame that fill'd the Grecian sea,
And rang through Roman skies;
O! ever bright that land must be-
But tell us where it lies!

The rose-crown'd summer ceaseless shines

On orient realms of gold,

The holy place of early shrines,

The fair, the famed of old;

But ages on their flood have borne

Away the loftiest fane,

Yet left upon the lands of Morn

A still unbroken chain.

The West-O! wide its forests wave,

But long the setting sun

Hath blush'd to see the toiling slave
On fields for freedom won;

Still mighty in their seaward path
Roll on the ancient floods,

That miss the brethren of their youth,
The dwellers of the woods.

The North with misty mantle lowers
On nations wise and brave,
Who gather from a thousand shores
The wealth of land and wave;

But stains are on their boasted store-
Though Freedom's shrine be fair,
'Tis empty-or they bow before
A gilded idol there!

The South-the cloudless South-expands Her deserts to the day,

Where rove those yet unconquer'd bands,

Who own no scepter's sway;

But wherefore is the iron with

Our golden image blent?

For, see, the harem-bars reach forth

Into the Arab's tent,

O! Earth hath many a region bright,
And Ocean many an isle-

But where on mortals shines the light
Of Freedom's cloudless smile?

The search is vain! From human skies

The angel early fled

Our only land of freedom is

The country of the dead!

MISS FRANCES JANE CROSBY,

AN AMERICAN AUTHORESS.

"Tis bright where'er the heart is;
Nor chain nor dungeon dim,

May check the mind's aspirings,

The spirit's pealing hymn.

The heart gives life its beauty,

Its glory and its power,—

'Tis sunlight to its rippling stream,

And soft dew to its flower."

THE poems of this blind lady have been so much and so justly admired by all who have read them, and have so frequently drawn from the pen of reviewers acknowledgments of their superior excellence, almost amounting to adulation, that a few glimpses of her early history will be received no doubt by our readers with interest. To her assiduous efforts as a teacher, the Institution for the Blind at New York, with which she has long been connected, owes much of its present prosperity; and to her aid in many other respects it is, no doubt, indebted for its worldwide reputation.

No one can read her poems and not be struck with the simple beauty and elegance of her style, the correctness of her imagery, and her giddy flights of

fancy, as may be seen in the poem entitled, "Visit to a Fixed Star." And more particularly is she happy in the choice of euphonic words, and in the construction of musical and well rounded sentences, which is said to be a characteristic of the blind. In the preface of her first work, the writer of it observes: "That one who, from the earliest period of infancy, has been deprived of sight, and whose entire knowledge of external objects, from which to paint with the imaginative pencil, has been derived from oral description, should be able thus faithfully to present scenes from nature, and in colors so vivid and true as to render the reader incredulous as to the originality of the production, is a subject of surprise, as well as admiration.

As an evidence that Miss Crosby is in some degree a reasoner, as well as poetess, we copy the following lines from her last work, entitled, "Monterey and other Poems: "

TIME CHRONICLED IN A SKULL

Why should I fear it? Once the pulse of life
Throbbed in these temples, pale and bloodless now?

Here reason sat enthroned, its empire held

O'er infant thought and thought to action grown:

A flashing eye in varying glances told

The secret workings of immortal mind.

The vital spark hath fled, and hope, and love,

*Thoughts suggested to our authoress on placing her watch in a human skull, which was one day put into her hands,

H